Hey Hounds! This week we are highlighting Patrick St. George ’25 and his internship experience this summer at TJX Corporations! Patrick’s role as a financial analyst intern included data analysis work, projects, and more! Read this blog to learn more about Patrick’s experience, and what advice he has to offer!
Give a brief overview of the company that you interned with, as well as what your position was.
I interned at TJX. Corporations in Framingham, MA, and they are an off-price retailer who owns stores such as TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra, and HomeSense. They specialize in working with name-brand products to bring high-value products at prices that everyone can afford. They market themselves as a place where any type of person can shop and promote their treasure hunt experience, which is when you walk into one of their stores, customers treat it as a treasure hunt to find the best product at the best price. I work as a financial analyst intern with their Marmaxx brand on the BP&A, and my team focused on working with the distribution centers to gather essential and valuable data weekly, monthly, and yearly to see how expenses are fluctuating and then using that data to make adjustments and forecasts on how to plan the expenses going forward.
Describe a typical day as an intern. What were your day-to-day tasks and responsibilities?
I was very lucky because my team was awesome, and right from the start I felt like a part of the team. The first few weeks were all about learning. Members of my team would set up meetings with me where they would walk me through different parts of the business, teach me how things flowed through their plans and forecasts, teach me the TJX language, and were extremely open to any questions I had. After I got more comfortable and started to learn more about how many of the teams operated, they started giving me projects to work on. I had a weekly report where I was given weekly data from the distribution centers, then had to flow it through Excel, then find any fluctuations on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, and then send an email report to senior leadership so they could receive the weekly update. I was also given projects where I would help with forecasts, updating how our plans ran through Excel and were calculated, and just helping out with each member of my team’s projects where they would teach me about their responsibilities and what they do on a day-to-day basis. It was also a big deal to schedule meet and greets with people in any part of the business to get to know what they do, so I would take part in a few of these every week.
Were you involved in any major projects or accomplishments as an intern?
I was involved in one major intern group project that we started at the beginning of our internship and took up the entire 11-week internship. We were responsible for finding a cost-saving initiative in a part of their businesses. We met with many different teams in the company outside of finance, toured a distribution center, created a marketing campaign, and created multiple financial models that showed how we would save the company money. We then had to present this project in the form of a presentation to over 100 people, including multiple vice presidents of TJX, to present our project findings. The biggest accomplishment was that I got a return offer to come back as a full-time financial analyst following graduation.
What are your career goals? How will this internship help you reach those goals?
My career goal is to just do the best job I can in any role or situation that I am placed in. I have a lot to learn from so many people, and I’m always just going to keep my mind open and just always work as hard as I can. This internship helped me reach my goals because I went into it very seriously, stayed focused, and just tried to do the best job I could no matter how big or small the project I was given. I will take this mindset with me into my final year of school and then when I return next summer for the full-time position.
What are your key takeaways from your experience? What skills did you gain from this internship?
The takeaways were truly the people I met and conversations I had with other interns and everyone of my coworkers and leaders. We had weekly talks with presidents, vice presidents, and the CEO, Ernie Herrman, who all gave us an hour of their time to give us advice. Everyone was so helpful, and I was grateful for my manager and team because they showed me how to be a professional and how to work together as a team. Their only requirement for me was to learn and ask questions, and I loved getting to work on different projects with everyone and see each person’s different work styles and ways of thinking. I also loved my intern project; my team was great, and we all clicked from the jump and just wanted to work hard to create the best project, and I think we truly did. I also loved just getting to understand how what I was learning in the classroom translated over to the real-world workforce, and seeing the similarities and differences was very interesting. My technical skills when it came to Excel and analyzing data also felt a lot stronger by the end of the internship but still have a lot to learn.
Why did you apply to this internship? What aspects of the position/company interested you?
I applied to TJX because, when researching them, they always seemed to have a good reputation, and I knew of their stores and thought they always gave a great deal to their customers. Also, I knew they had a great internship program and thought that it would be such a great opportunity to land an internship with such an awesome company that cares about its employees because one of their biggest values is developing talent and having a great company culture.
How has your Assumption career prepared you for this internship?
I truly want to thank my professors for helping me reach this point. When I came here freshman year, I had no idea what I wanted to do post-college and was a general business major. After taking a few economics classes, I was hooked on the way you had to think about problems, and I felt like each class opened my mind to a different way of thinking about many different topics. Assumption really helped me focus on my goals for the future, and I think pushing through some struggles at the beginning of college helped me gain a great work ethic and not lose confidence when things get hard nowadays.
What advice would you give to a student who wants to participate in an internship?
Some advice that I would give to students who want to participate in an internship is to keep at it and push through any rejection. It can be very difficult to find an internship, and I sent so many applications to only a few interviews and only got one offer. The right fit will come; just try your best not to get discouraged because if you are a hard worker, one company will find you and appreciate what you bring to the table and will give you a shot.
How did your skills as a student-athlete translate into this position?
I think the biggest thing being a student-athlete helped me with is just how to be a team player and handle many different personalities. Everyone has a different type of communication style they prefer, so being able to adjust the way you say something depending on the person but still get the same message across is a great skill to have and I don’t think I would have that without my athletic side because our track team is huge. Also, I learned time management; I had to manage many different projects at once because I had to manage school, work, practice, and lifts each day, and that translated really well into my internship.
If you are interested in being featured on Highlighting Hounds, please email us at careerdevelopment@assumption.edu!
